The world of front-end development is evolving at a rapid pace, and it has become a challenge for web developers, both newbies and veterans alike, to keep up with this change. When dealing with front end programming, Angular and React are two popular Javascript technologies that you will come across for creating interactive single-page applications. While both are capable of helping you develop cutting-edge web and mobile applications, a question still bothers developers - which one is better?

You can find umpteen articles on the internet debating which of these technologies is a preferred option for web development. The current write-up’s objective is to give you an in-depth understanding of Angular and React, hopefully making it easier for you to choose the one that will perfectly cater to your requirements. For comparison purposes, we will use both frameworks to develop two times the identical application, and see how each of them works to decipher many of the common front end problems that you may encounter.

Angular vs. React: The Differences

There are people who argue that a comparison between Angular and React is pointless, similar to attempting a comparison between grapes and mangoes. While Angular (developed by Google) is a complete web application framework that functions fully on the client side, React (developed by Facebook) is a library that functions both on the client and server side. Even if it is possible to convert React into a complete framework by adding a few libraries, the functioning of the framework still differs entirely from that of Angular, leaving no place for a comparison in that area.

The major difference between the two technologies is found in state management. While data binding is readily available in Angular, React provides unidirectional data flow and state management by using Redux. Whether data binding is superior to the unidirectional data is another topic of hot discussion these days.

Some Angular Features not Found in React

Angular by default has some built-in features that are not found in React. These include:

Computed Properties

In Angular, using plain getters may not be judicious performance-wise, because they are identified on each function call. You can get around this situation by using BehaviorSubject from RsJS. In the case of React, the same objective is made possible by using @computed from MobX.

Data Binding

Angular uses two way data binding by connecting DOM values with the Model data via the controller. So, if the user provides a new value in an input field, both the View as well as the Model gets updated.

Dependency Injection

Angular uses a dependency injection pattern, which means the dependencies are written in a separate file. In data-binding environments, it is better to involve a little of dependency injection as it is useful for decoupling. Moreover, with Dependency Injection, it is possible to get diverse developments of various stores.

Material Design

Material design is a widely accepted choice for many projects these days. Angular features material design components, which includes a wide range of reusable and accessible user interface components.

Form Validation

Another feature of Angular that comes in very useful is form validations. By taking care of the validations, the library helps prevent bugs and repetition of code.

Scoped CSS

One of the features that most developers want in their web applications is the ability to scope CSS to a particular component, without disturbing the other components. Angular supports scoped CSS which helps you achieve the CSS encapsulation.

Build the Same Application More than Once Using Angular and React

Now, let's compare the features and functions of both technologies by using them to build a simple application - a Shoutboard, which allows people pinning messages to a regular page. We will be using TypeScript as well as Apollo Client in both applications.

An active routerLink is automatically detected by the Angular Router and a proper routerLinkActive class is applied on it. The <router-outlet> element is used to provide irrespective of the chosen current path.

Here the under-the-hood process is not only simple but also very effective in terms of performance.

Summary: In Angular, the provider lifecycle management is a built-in feature of its Dependency injection and hence, it is easier to achieve. Although the React version can also be used, it requires much more overlapping.

Each value that influences the computed property as factors should be defined as a BehaviorSubject. As you can see RxJS is used trivially only for computed properties, it is actually a drawback. Moreover, subscriptions need to be managed manually.

As you can see, React offers a much more straightforward solution. There is a computed property that binds to counter and the result is recomputed only when counter changes. The property is referenced from the JSX template.

This component connects and brings together HTML, CSS, and injected services. On initialization, the component also informs the function to retrieve posts from API. The use of scoped CSS prevents the content from affecting anything placed exterior to the component.

Each CSS class comes with an arbitrary postfix by the CSS Modules loader, making it unique. It is a direct way to avoid conflicts. Webpack imported objects are then used to reference the classes.

Summary: The type checking and code completion support offered by JSX is a great feature. Although Angular uses the AOT compiler, which performs some of these tasks, it is not as perfect as the JSX/TypeScript.

GraphQL - Loading Data

We are using GraphQL to store all the application's data. A BaaS, such as Graphcool, can be used to generate GraphQL back-end easily.